01
Aileen Lee
Lee wrote the 2013 TechCrunch post that gave the industry the word "unicorn", which is a strange thing to be best known for when the more interesting fact is that she left Kleiner Perkins to start her own firm the year before.
Who backs it
Brandless
Direct-to-consumer essentials brand that raised from SoftBank's Vision Fund at a $500M+ valuation in 2018, then shut down in February 2020 — the first Vision Fund company to fail outright.
1 profiled backer
The backers
Who invested in Brandless
What the record doesn't say
Read this with the gaps in mind.
This page lists the celebrity backers of Brandless that we have been able to source, not its full cap table. Institutional investors, founders and private angels are outside what this site covers, and terms are rarely disclosed on either side.
Frequently asked questions
Which celebrities have invested in Brandless?
Aileen Lee is the profiled backer of Brandless on this site. Each entry links to the reporting it comes from. Other investors — funds, founders and angels who are not public figures — are not covered here.
How much did they invest in Brandless?
Cheque sizes are almost never disclosed. Where a round size, stake or valuation has been reported we cite it above; where it has not, we say so rather than estimate.